Adobe announces Project Mighty stylus and Napoleon ruler

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Adobe isn’t really known for making hardware, but that might be about to change with the announcement of the company’s new digital stylus called Project Mighty, and a companion ruler called Napoleon. Together these tools could allow for a kind of interaction with digital content that previously required expensive graphics tablets and a lot of experience with professional-level software.

Project Mighty looks like any other capacitive stylus, but it’s pressure-sensitive. Samsung has used Wacom technology to build the pressure-sensitive S Pen system for its Note devices, but Project Mighty essentially grafts that ability onto any touchscreen device, provided you’re using a compatible Adobe app.

The stylus connects to the tablet or phone via Bluetooth, and relays pressure information through the app. Thus, the screen doesn’t have to understand how much force is being applied with Project Mighty — the app handles all the heavy lifting. The stylus will have a rechargeable battery and some undisclosed amount of internal storage. Adobe also refers to it as “cloud” enabled, but it’s not clear if that means the corresponding apps, or the pen itself.

The anonymous app used to demo Project Mighty on an iPad was set up to understand regular touch interaction as well, and this is the first hint of some very interesting functionality. Because the app knows the difference between your finger and the stylus, you can still manipulate objects, zoom, erase, and more with multitouch gestures.

The Napoleon ruler has a similar tie-in with Project Mighty. The app will know where the ruler is when it’s on the screen and uses that as a guide for drawing straight lines and other shapes. It’s like a more powerful version of snap settings in Photoshop.

This is all still in the early stages. We don’t know anything about pricing, possible release window, or even much about what software/hardware these tools will work with. Adobe might still scrap the project, or completely redesign everything before you get a crack at it. Hopefully it becomes a reality because it looks mighty interesting.